Missouri governor, Israeli Ambassador to U.S. discuss building business partnership

Governor Eric Greitens, R, is taking steps to enhance Missouri’s economic relationship with Israel. On Tuesday, the governor hosted the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, during a visit to the St. Louis area. They participated in a business roundtable at the Danforth Plant Science Center. Greitens said healthcare, cyber security, and agriculture could strengthen the partnership.

“Missouri is one of the leaders in agriculture technology today as is the state of Israel. So part of the discussion is how we can enhance those relationships in agriculture technology.” said Greitens.

Dermer agreed that the future of this partnership will be profitable.

“I frankly did not know how important agriculture and ag tech is to this economy. I think we’re if not the best in the world, we’re one of the best in the world in that area.” said Dermer. “I think Israel is going to be a great resource.”

Dermer said he is looking forward to the governor’s trip to Israel later this year.

The ambassador’s visit wrapped with a dinner at the Governor’s mansion.

Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) Photo courtesy of US House of Representatives

North Korea is threatening to unleash four missiles near the U.S. territory of Guam within days. President Donald Trump is doubling down on his threats to wage “fire and fury” on North Korea after receiving criticism that his aggressive rhetoric might fuel tensions. Mid-Missouri Republican Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer tells Moberly radio station KWIX that he expects the U.S.’s missile defense program to come into play.

“I think you’ll see the next thing that we do is to try to shoot one of them out of the air to show them (North Korea) that we’re ready for them,” says Luetkemeyer.

“We’ll see what happens, but it is a very, very difficult situation that continues to escalate and actually disintegrate every day.”

The U.S. is working on its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, otherwise known as THAAD. The missile defense program is meant to shoot down shorter range missiles. North Korea has been building a missile that is said to have the capability of reaching Alaska and some western states.

“I’m guessing here, but I think you can probably sort of see the handwriting on the wall that some of the missiles that were misfired earlier by the North Koreans probably had some sort of activity by our own people to try and impede their (North Korea’s) ability to operate,” says Luetkemeyer.

Critics say the best way to handle North Korea involves diplomacy. They also say missile defense is too expensive to be America’s primary strategy.

A western Missouri man says he knew a stranger limping along in front of his home fit the profile of the person who allegedly gunned down a Clinton police officer. Bud Fitzwater, who ended law enforcement’s two-day manhunt for Ian McCarthy, tells Kansas City television station WDAF that he locked eyes with McCarthy as the man was walking down Fitzwater’s driveway.

Ian McCarthy

“I had my grandkids down here while this was all going on. I was really concerned that the guy would get out and get loose in the area,” says Fitzwater. “He shaved off his beard. I called the wife. She was sitting watching TV. I called her over and I said ‘Look at this guy. Does he look like that McCarthy guy?’ She looked at him and said ‘I don’t know.’”

Fitzwater grabbed his gun.

“I thought well, this guy is going to go by, go in the woods and come around behind,” says Fitzwater. “So I came out some, walked around my buildings and looked for him. I couldn’t find him.”

McCarthy, 39, turned around and went back to a road after seeing a neighbor’s big, scary-looking dog run across Fitzwater’s yard.

“Overall, I think the last couple of days everybody has been on pins and needs,” says Fitzwater. “I, like everybody else, was kind of fearful that he might get in our house or try to get in.”

He has been charged with first-degree murder in Sunday night’s shooting death of 37-year-old Gary Michael. Reports say that the rifle believed to have been used in the shooting was found north of Clinton in Henry County.

Investigators are still trying to determine if McCarthy had any help while he was on the loose, based on where he was when authorities captured him. More than 100 law enforcement officers were involved in the hunt for McCarthy, who was captured near Bucksaw Marina Tuesday.

Wednesday marked the three year anniversary of the shooting death of Michael Brown, Jr. in Ferguson.

Mike Brown, Sr.

About 100 supporters gathered for a remembrance ceremony outside of Canfield Green Apartments in Ferguson, the site where the 18-year-old died following a police confrontation. The event was highlighted with dance performances with a “Hands up, don’t shoot” theme and the reading of names of those killed in police shootings.

Demarco Davidson, the executive director for the Michael Brown Chosen For Change Foundation, said he believes there has been progress since 2014, but more needs to be done.

“The fight for justice for many of these families that deal with these type of tragedies are still being met with injustice. So that’s why we continue to do what we do. We continue to protest, to march to the scene, and come together as a community.” Davidson explained.

Brown’s father, Mike Brown, Sr. said the continued community support helps to ease his pain.

Photos courtesy of Jill Enders

“Everybody’s name is Mike Brown, ya know this can happen to anyone, so for people to still remember and know the struggle and everything the family went through and what they believe in wasn’t justified and to still come out and support,” he said.

Brown also shared how he chooses to remember his son.

“I never want to see holes, bullets, and blood coming out of my son, so the last memories I ever have coming out of my head is smiles and jazz,” said Brown.

Following the ceremony, Brown was so overcome with emotion that he decided not to participate in the Michael Brown Justice Walk.

His son was shot to death by former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. A grand jury chose not to indict Wilson.

A two day search tracked down the man suspected of killing a western Missouri police officer on late Sunday night. Ian McCarthy was located by a state trooper after being spotted by a driver passing by near a resort on Truman Lake close to western-Missouri’s Clinton.

Dozens of law enforcement officers had been searching the Clinton area for McCarthy since the incident. A Tuesday afternoon SWAT operation at a home 22-miles away in Chilhowee came up empty handed.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Bill Lowe confirmed that McCarthy sustained a gunshot wound when Officer Michael returned fire during the exchange.

“This just goes to the statement I made yesterday that Officer Michael was heroic to the end” said Lowe. “Even sustaining a fatal gunshot wound, he was able to return fire.”

McCarthy was taken to a hospital in Kansas City last night in stable condition. Shortly after the Sunday night incident, McCarthy crashed and disabled the vehicle he was driving, possibly the result of the wound he received from Michael.

Sgt. Lowe said it’s not known yet if McCarthy was aided by any other persons in sustaining himself for the two days following the shooting.

“That’s part of the process that we’re going to go through, is to figure out how he got to where he was. Did he have any help? That’s an investigation that’s going to continue.”

McCarthy was taken into custody without incident shortly after 6:15 Tuesday evening. A number of vacant properties in Clinton were searched the previous day where it was thought McCarthy could have been hiding.

McCarthy has a lengthy criminal past. He has a felony warrant out for unlawful possession of a firearm in July of 2015 in Johnson County, Kansas. He also has an active first degree assault warrant in New Hampshire.

McCarthy has been associated with 20 criminal violations there between 1997 and 2011. A 2001 felony first-degree assault charge resulted in a prison sentence after a jury convicted him of stabbing a child several times in the neck.

Michael, who had been on the force less than a year, is the first Clinton police officer killed in the line of duty. He served in the armed forces prior to joining the Clinton Police Department.

An impromptu observance was planned for 10 a.m. Wednesday as residents were to line the streets to pay respect when Officer Michael’s was returned to Clinton.

A candle light vigil has been set to take place Wednesday night at 8:30 at The Henry County Court House in Clinton.

Visitation will be held Friday from 6 pm to 9pm at Vansant-Mills Funeral Home in Clinton. A second public viewing will be held at the Benson Convention Center in Clinton from 9:00am to 11:00am Saturday.

Michael’s funeral will be held on Saturday at 11:00 am at the convention center.

Written by Alisa Nelson, Jason Taylor and David Lee of Missourinet Clinton affiliate KDKD

More than 100 St. Louis businesses are supporting the “Save The Raise” campaign. It was announced during a news conference in south St. Louis on Monday that these business will maintain the $10 an hour minimum wage. Jason Deem, who owns several businesses along Cherokee Street, including “South Side Spaces”, is calling on larger companies to follow suit.

Support grows to keep $10 minimum wage in St. Louis

“It’s unfortunate that us as small businesses are having to lead the charge, but we’ll take that burden and we’ll prove that it works and we’ll be that case study and I think that a lot of these businesses here on Cherokee Street will be that case study. We’ll prove to our elected officials that this does work.” said Deem.

“I treated the minimum wage increase just like the cost of a can of tomatoes going up for my restaurants,” said Casey Miller, co-owner of the Vista Room restaurant and other businesses in the city. “The sky didn’t fall.”

The “Save The `Raise” campaign launched on July 14th.

St. Louis’ higher minimum wage went into effect in May, but the state legislature passed a measure prohibiting cities from establishing their own minimum wages. The city’s minimum wage is set to roll back to the state’s minimum wage of $7.70 per hour on August 28th.

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley has filed a motion in St. Louis with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri to have a lawsuit filed by Backpage.com against him dismissed.

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley

Earlier this year, the Attorney General launched an investigation into the classified website’s alleged involvement with promoting human trafficking. Backpage.com fired back with a lawsuit in an attempt to block Hawley’s investigation. He has filed court documents of “explosive new evidence” which suggests that the website is engaging in illegal human trafficking.

“The evidence we are making public today indicates Backpage has directly and actively promoted illegal sex trafficking,” Hawley says. “My message to Backpage is this: The truth is coming for you. We have evidence including audio recordings, photos and various documents. You cannot hide from the truth. And I will not stop until the full truth about Backpage’s involvement in trafficking is exposed and those responsible are held to account,” Hawley adds.

He says the evidence his office has also uncovered shows that Backpage has contracted with an off-shore firm to help promote illegal trafficking activities.

In April, Hawley announced a crackdown on human trafficking in Missouri, including new regulations under Missouri’s consumer protection laws.

The numbers are staggering – about 60,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2016, more than 600 in the St. Louis area.

Missouri State Capitol Ceiling

As public health officials scramble for solutions, Ted Cicero, author of “The Changing Face of Heroin in the United States,” says Missouri serves as an example – both for what should and shouldn’t be done.

It’s the only state without an electronic prescription-drug monitoring program (PDMP), after a bill was tabled on the final day of the legislative session.

State House Democrat Crystal Quade of Springfield was a member of a conference committee which tried to negotiate a compromise on the bill. She says it failed because its language was weaker than efforts already in place at the local level, and would have overridden those programs.

“There were many of us who were in support of PDMP who did not want to have to go to municipalities and say ‘Even though you’ve been collecting all this data and you have this fabulous robust program, we’re going to drop to a lessor robust program that’s not going to be as effective'” said Quade.

Governor Eric Greitens recently signed an executive order creating a program targeting hospitals and pharmacies that inappropriately dispense prescription drugs.

Quade thinks Greitens order fails to address the problem because it only calls for one company, Express Scripts, to track the dispensing activity.

“Groups are already doing that. These businesses are already tracking that information. What was disappointing from the governor’s executive order is there was no next step. There was no data sharing with doctors. It is not a prescription drug monitoring program frankly”

Missouri Democratic U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill was also critical of Greitens executive order.

“The welcome mat is still out for drug dealers to shop for prescriptions in our state” said McCaskill. “The real solution here is for our elected officials in Jefferson City to get off the sidelines, and pass a robust statewide program into law that gives law enforcement, pharmacies, and doctors the tools they need.”

Cicero points out Missouri also is among a handful of states to sue opioid manufacturers. He maintains those drug makers deserve to be penalized.

“Any monies that could come from that should be really spent on ways in which we can provide treatment that usually is very costly,” he states.

State Attorney General Josh Hawley announced a lawsuit against three pharmaceutical companies last month. He claimed Purdue Pharmaceutical, Endo Pharmaceuticals, and Janssen Pharmaceuticals have violated Missouri’s consumer-protection laws, committed fraud and perpetrated lies.

While making his announcement, Hawley said 30,000 hospital and emergency room visits in 2015 were attributed to opioids, a 200% increase over the last decade. He added that in the same year, 500 deaths from opioid overdoses or complications took place in Missouri.

Hawley claims he seeking one of the largest judgments in Missouri history with the lawsuit against the three companies.

Cicero, a psychiatry professor at Washington University in St. Louis, says treatment doesn’t always work initially, but he says it does work. He adds schools also need to put a priority on teaching prevention.

Despite the lack of action by the state legislature, the practice of prescription drug monitoring appears to be picking up steam across the state. This month, St. Louis County is expanding its system, which went live in April. Columbia and Boone County are a part of that.

A week ago, the Springfield City Council voted 7-1 to implement a drug monitoring program patterned after the St. Louis system. The following day, the Greene County Commission unanimously adopted a program for all of its jurisdiction outside Springfield and Republic, which also has its own arrangement.

Cicero says anecdotal data has shown some alarming findings – that drug dealers with clients who have died don’t lose business. Instead, he says, people who are addicted will seek out that dealer.

“They think that person must really have good stuff, if people are overdosing and dying,” he states.

Cicero adds his research points to another challenge – in many cases, people with an addiction say they aren’t afraid of overdosing, because they assume emergency responders will have Narcan, a medication to immediately reverse the effects of opioids.

Hank Koebler of Missourinet affiliate KSSZ contributed to this story along with Missourinet’s Jason Taylor

The Federal Aviation Administration is on the scene investigating a northeast Missouri plane crash that killed two people on Thursday. The aircraft took off from the Mexico, Missouri airport with a destination of Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Around 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, the Highway Patrol received a request from the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center to help find a missing plane. A GPS location in rural Ralls County was provided.

Members of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Ralls County Sheriff’s Office, Ralls County Ambulance District, Perry Fire Department, and Ralls County first responders began checking the area. Around 1:00 a.m. Friday, emergency personnel located a 2003 Zenith 701 single-engine airplane that crashed in a soybean field approximately six miles northwest of Laddonia.

Both occupants of the aircraft were pronounced dead at the scene. The victims have been identified as 41-year old Bobby Faulkner, and 41-year old Shannon Faulkner, of Greenwood, Arkansas. Officials believe Bobby Faulkner was piloting the plane.

Some U.S. lawmakers, including Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, say agriculture could suffer by renegotiating a trade bloc agreement with Canada and Mexico. McCaskill says President Trump’s push to make changes to the pact known as NAFTA makes some Republicans and Democrats nervous.

Sen. Claire McCaskill

“If we begin moving the needle as it relates to other products, I think the concern is that retaliation would come against agriculture,” says McCaskill. “Both Republicans and Democrats that are from states where agriculture is the foundation of our economies want to make sure that while we’re trying to get more jobs in America, we don’t do harm to America’s agricultural economy.”

Canada is Missouri agriculture’s leading trade market and Mexico is second.

“Mexico is looking to Brazil to see if they can get their input costs down and get their margins closer so that the prices are closer to ours because the Mexican government is under political pressure to not do business with the United States,” she says.

McCaskill says she has no problem if Trump believes he can get a better deal but – in her words – it doesn’t do any good to increase the price of Canadian steel if Canada is going to put tariffs on U.S. corn.